What is freedom?

"Freedom is a feeling. Freedom can be defined from many vantage points of life, i.e in society, in the mind, in nature. On one hand freedom is the ability to do what you want, free of impingement from another. One the other hand, and perhaps more essentially, freedom is the feeling that arises when we are in a nonresistant flow with life. It is a mixture of relaxation, vitality, and empowerment. This can occur in both conditional freedom, being unshackled by external factors, and unconditional freedom, the same mixture of feelings regardless of the environmental or physical conditions the body finds itself in. Naturally, unconditional freedom is harder to attain."

"Freedom is the ability to make a choice. To be able to make a choice is to be 100% responsible. To be 100% responsible is to be conscious of all there is in every moment. It is only when we are conscious that we can make choices - the rest are compulsive, reactionary decisions. It is only natural that when we have a choice we can choose bliss and peace – that is freedom."

“I think we don’t understand freedom. True freedom consists of doing what is best for us as individuals and what is good for the society in which we live. Today, freedom is understood as doing whatever we want. If everyone were to do that, no society could exist. Our freedom is subject to the needs of society… Vedanta says that only a person free of dependencies of all kinds is truly free. All others will act in a distorted way. Parents don’t teach this. Schools and colleges don’t teach this. Thus, the new generation comes with a distorted idea on which they live their lives. As individuals, the more and more you drop dependencies, the freer you will become. Keep this ideal as a goal and you will find both freedom and peace.”

"‘Freedom’ is born from a polarity - that being enslavement or imprisonment.  If there wasn’t such a thing as prison, there would be no such thing as freedom.  Because of this, what we consider ‘freedom’ in society is really just an absence of restrictions.  Restriction creates freedom, and thus there is no true freedom in the world… well, at least in this way.  The true ‘freedom’ we all have is the ability to calm and control our minds, and thus exercise our highest potential in any circumstance."

“Irvin Yalom (1980) “freedom: the responsibility and freedom to make our lives as we will, to be the sole authors of our lives, thus leaving us groundless with no one to determine our destiny but ourselves.” I believe the framework of “Freedom” being one of the four existential concerns of human existence is a good place to start. Freedom in the context of Yalom’s definition may ultimately drive an individual toward existential isolation. Overall freedom is having the ability to be the director of our own lives and not be burdened by responsibilities, which dictate the actions we take in life. Typically people may have freedom from various aspects of their life. For example a lottery winner who quits their job may have financial freedom, but family responsibilities remain and as such they lack freedom from family….”
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"Freedom is liberation from identification with everything that is other than awareness.  Our practice must be to identify with a sense of awareness within and to remove the coverings of confusion, narratives, and longings that prevent us from being who we truly are.  Freedom is being who we truly are."

“The discipline of self-mastery leads to true sovereignty: It emancipates the mind from being a reactive effect and instead empowers it to become a responsible cause. The key to social change (and the only genuine way to achieve a sustainable new paradigm of world peace) is through the psychological maturation of the individual and the spiritual awakening of the people. Therefore, the most beneficial, patriotic, and proactive form of participation in global human society generally involves the act of creating mutually transformative art, facilitating mutually transformative experiences, and sharing mutually transformative practices and traditions.”
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